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My recent experience with multiboxing helped me organize my thoughts on which World of Warcraft (WoW) classes lend themselves towards the practice. In general, the “main” character (or master)can be anything, while secondary (or slave) characters are better off as ranged classes. This is because positioning becomes a concern when multiboxing, and though positioning issues can be overcome, it’s easier to just bombard enemies from afar.

Arguably, the master character is well-suited to be a tanking class, because of the aggro lock. Let’s break things down spec-by-spec, however.

• Balance/Restoration Druid: Excellent slave choice, with the flexibility of a supporting damage class and a healer. At level 40, Moonkin form makes for a powerful supporting nuker, without the squishiness of a cloth class. Speccing heavier in Restoration makes for a reasonable healbot, but I’d sooner take a number of Moonkin slaves with me; combined with a restoration Shaman, a Moonkin slave army would be a potent and robust force to be reckoned with.
• Feral Druid: A good choice for a master character, particularly when supported by a healer.
• Hunters: A good choice for a master character, but a little complex for slave characters. Pets add additional complexity when factored in as slaves, particularly since they are tank stand-ins. Arguably, if one’s master character is a tanking class, then a Hunter can make for a good slave character, but with aggro and crowd control being stapes of the Hunter class, there are far better ranged classes to act as slaves.
• Mage: A traditional slave class for multiboxing, Mages are excellent artillery classes if one’s main is a tank. Mages are rather squishy, however, so having a healer along would be useful. Bringing Mage slaves along generally implies that one intends to burn down enemies before the slaves get into melee range.
• Holy Paladin: A great healbot when dual-boxing who can take a hit and not require much monitoring.
• Protection Paladin: A great master character, especially if one has a healer slave along, since it will fuel mana regrowth and therefore fuel aggro-holding abilities. With an AoE grinding spec and a healer in tow, expect to be nigh unstoppable.
• Retribution Paladin: If you must play this spec, play it as a master character.
• Holy/Discipline Priest: A good slave class, but not as great as healing classes that can take more melee hits.
• Shadow Priest: Pre-40, this spec is a little squishy for a slave character, but post-40, it’s almost as good as a Moonkin. As a master character, a Shadow Priest is a potent force with the added flexibility of healing one’s slaves.
• Rogue: Like other melee classes, the Rogue makes for a good master character. Moreso than other melee classes, the ROgue would be extremely difficult to play effectively as a slave.
• Elemental/Restoration Shaman: Like the Balance/Restoration Druid, a non-melee Shaman is a great slave class. An army of Shaman slaves would allow numerous buffing totems to be dropped simultaneously. For dual-boxing, a Restoration Shaman is a great healbot slave, who can take a decent number of hits and still add ranged damage into the mix.
• Enhancement Shaman: A solid main character if a healing slave is in the mix.
• Warlock: Another traditional multiboxing class, the Warlock lends itself more to master characters than slaves, and like the Mage, works best under the theory that enemies will be dead long before they get into melee range.
• Warrior: A solid master character class.

With the above in mind, I believe that the ultimate dual-boxing combination would be a Protection Paladin paired with a Restoration Shaman slave. This would ensure very quick grinding, and overcome problems with the Paladin being susceptible to ranged magic attacks.

As far as three+ boxing goes, I’m tempted to go with a Balance/Restoration Shaman or Shadow Priest master character, because both have methods of returning mana to their group, as well as healing them. Combine this with Balance Druid slaves, and we have a very robust fighting force that can virtually ignore spending early money on Feral skills. Not to mention, once the group hits level 40, the sight of two+ Moonkin minions escorting one’s character is downright cool.

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